In Other News: Severed Head Found in Shrubs

Story Sent in by Nathan:

Theresa and I spoke for a week online and then decided to meet up. Online, she had come across as bubbly, personable, and quick-witted. A good conversationalist, I had little doubt that we'd have a good time together in person. She worked at a Whole Foods, I co-owned a couple of local convenience stores.

In person, things were different. I met her in a park. She was on a bench, and she seemed to be in a rather dour mood. I asked her if everything was okay.

She turned slowly to me and said, "I don't understand it."

I looked around, to see if perhaps what she was talking about was immediately obvious. It wasn't. "What don't you understand?"

"Anything," she said, and then turned away from me, eyes staring vacantly ahead.

It may be a good time to mention that Theresa wasn't much of a blinker. In fact, in the almost-minute that since I had first seen her, I didn't catch her blinking once. It was creepy, but I was worried about her (she had mentioned a shaky relationship with her roommates - could there have been a problem that morning?) and so I sat down next to her and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I just don't understand it," she said again.

I asked her, "Can you tell me what happened? Is someone hurt?"

"Come with me," she said, then stood up. I stood up, too, and she walked us all the way around the bench until she stopped and sat down right where she had just been. She stared ahead and I was left standing there, confused as anything.

Of course, I also wondered if she was having me on, so I asked her, "Would you like to cancel for today? It seems like you'd rather be alone."

She extended a hand to me, and I went to take it, but I saw that it was filthy, as if she'd been digging in the dirt. Instead, I sat down next to her, noting that I still hadn't caught a blink, although by that point, certainly she must have. Right?

She put her hand down and said, "Okay. It is buried. The deed is done and that's all I'll say." She lowered her head to her lap and then, after a moment, snapped it up and blinked. She looked around and saw me again. "Nate?" she asked, "Hey!" she swung her arms around me and gave me a hug.

"Hey," I said, hugging her back, "What was that all about?"

"What was what all about?"

"'The deed is done,' 'I don't understand it,' you know, all of that weird stuff you were just talking about."

She gave me a look and replied, "I don't know what you're talking about. Could've just been a trick of the sunlight."

"A trick of the sunlight?"

She stood up. This time around, she blinked about as much as a normal person and said, "Ready for lunch?"

Lunch we did, and we had a decent time, although I couldn't forget my first impression of her. I brought it up again over lunch itself, and she once more disavowed any knowledge of her strange behavior. I asked her how her hand became so dirty, and she replied, "I was sitting in a park. Hands get dirty."

Maybe. Regardless, the entire affair creeped me out enough to not ask her out again, even though we've remained acquaintances (turns out, we know some of the same people). To this day, I have no idea what her little episode was all about.